Staunton, November 8 Now that most experts have concluded that Flight A321 was brought down as the result of a bomb explosion, Andrey Illarionov says, it is time to ask two more difficult questions: who destroyed the plane? And what did those who did so hope to achieve? There are essentially two answers that have […]
Staunton, November 8 – To the extent that falling prices for natural resources will force Moscow to rely on the development of other sectors, the Russian economy faces another and perhaps even more serious hit in the near term – a dramatically smaller workforce, each of whose members will have to support significantly larger pensioner […]
Staunton, November 6 On November 7, some will celebrate the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, and on November 9, a much smaller number will mark the anniversary of the Third Reich, a conjunction of dates that again prompts many to compare these two systems and their evils. In a Rufabula commentary November 6, Russian regionalist […]
Staunton, November 7 – Just as Vladimir Putin used the apartment bombings in Russian cities in 1999 to restart the Chechen war and bring himself to power, so too, again needing a war to keep his position, the Kremlin leader will exploit the terrorist plane bombing to expand Russia’s presence abroad and isolate Ukraine, according […]
Staunton, November 5 – Only if he is facing the complete collapse of his regime, Garri Kasparov says, will Putin consider invading the Baltic countries because NATO has made it clear that it will defend them and Moscow is unprepared to go to war with the West. Instead, the Kremlin leader is more likely to […]
Staunton, November 6 – The flood of news stories from a country as large, diverse and often strange as the Russian Federation often appears to be is far too large for anyone to keep up with. But there needs to be a way to mark those which can’t be discussed in detail but which are […]
Staunton, November 5 – Moscow’s revised budget, one that provides for large increases in spending for the military and government structures along with reductions in investment in human capital, means that Russia could soon find itself “both without scholars and without missiles or a fleet,” according to a study by Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.” […]
Staunton, November 5 – Many commentators are speculating on whether Russia’s elite groups, now threatened by Vladimir Putin’s policies, will find a way to remove him from office and install someone more to their liking. Andrey Piontkovsky has focused particular attention on this issue. But this is only part of a larger issue, Dmitry Gudkov […]
Staunton, November 4 – There are “two Russian worlds” now, and no one should confuse them, Andrey Kolesnikov says. The Russian authorities have their “own Russian world or more precisely Russian myth,” while the Russians themselves have their very different one which is truly universal. In an essay entitled “The Russian Myth against the Russian […]
Staunton, November 4 – Today, Russians mark a holiday that lays stress on “religiosity over secularism, national uniqueness over universal values, and stability over development,” values few besides its creator, Vladimir Putin, would have seen as its core when he established this holiday eleven years ago, according to Vladislav Inozemtsev. At that time, the Moscow […]
